Nick Reiner Called Sobriety 'The Worst 30 Days Of' His Life And Argued Staying Clean Wasn't 'An Accomplishment'

[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]

Nick Reiner, the troubled son and now accused killer of late Hollywood power players Rob and Michele Reiner, once spoke openly and controversially about sobriety, addiction, and recovery. Years later, those comments are being revisited through this week’s devastating and deeply disturbing lens.

Back in 2018, Nick appeared on the Dopey podcast hosted by his friend Dave Manheim. At the time, he was 32 and already carried a long, painful history with substance abuse. By his own admission, he had been in rehab 18 times since he was just 15 years old. But none of the programs or meetings, he said, ever seemed to stick. What he offered instead was an unfiltered look at how suffocating sobriety felt to him.

He began by explaining what even a short period of staying clean did to his mental state, and even called being sober the “worst 30 days” of his life. Nick said:

“If I went to 30 meetings in 30 days, and I stayed sober for that whole time, but those 30 days seemed like 30 months. They’re the worst 30 days of your life because you’re just thinking about being sober every single day.”

Whoa.

Then, he argued that moderation felt more humane than total restriction, even if that thinking flew directly in the face of recovery doctrine:

“As opposed to if you weren’t to go crazy and just smoke some weed, drink some beer, do whatever you gotta do.”

He suggested that limited use might actually allow a person to function without constantly measuring their worth in sober days:

“Who knows, you might get some more work done during that period or something else that you want to get done.”

What raised eyebrows then (and chills now) was how openly dismissive he was of sobriety as a goal in itself. See, Nick didn’t romanticize clean living or view it as a victory. On the podcast, he noted:

“I’d just rather not spend my life just constantly ticking away at the days that I’ve stayed clean, because I don’t really feel staying clean is an accomplishment in life. Because a lot of just clean people don’t do great things.”

He also took aim at the rehab industry, accusing it of exploiting relapse and monetizing failure:

“AA and the rehab industry are a separate entity. What I do know is that 99 percent of the places say they are 12-step based, and literally they rip the entire program, which is intended to be a free service, and they make money off of a program that if you relapse, they make even more money.”

Nick later said on the podcast that he could accept the first step of recovery — the brutal honesty of powerlessness. He revealed:

“I can get to the first step. I can admit that I’m powerless, that I have a drug addiction.”

But he couldn’t move beyond that. The idea of a higher power, the surrender, the faith required by many programs… it all stopped him cold. He called it the “God situation” and admitted it was hard for him to get a hold of.

And of course, today, those words sit particularly uncomfortably alongside the horrific reality of his arrest and the unimaginable loss of his parents.

Oof.

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If you or someone you know is experiencing substance abuse, help is available. Consider checking out the resources SAMHSA provides at https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline or check out StartYourRecovery.org.

[Image via Paul Mecurio/YouTube, MEGA/WENN]